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Over the past several decades, rapid growth in Chinese investment and trade has created for Africa a new development partner. China represents an alternative to U.S. and European nations whose past imperialism, resource avarice, and economic dictates-through the conditionality of IMF and World Bank lending-remain a negative legacy. This case uses the story of Zambia's Chambishi copper mine, which was purchased in 1998 by the state-owned China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corporation, to illustrate China's growing interest and involvement in the African continent. While many in Africa welcome the substantial Chinese investment, resentment over labor abuses, low pay, and substandard working conditions at some Chinese-owned enterprises fuels anti-China sentiment. At Chambishi copper mine, a 2005 explosion, caused by management's shoddy adherence to safety standards, killed nearly 50 miners and sparked outrage among Zambians. The explosion marked the first in a long series of protests and safety violations that would unfold at Chambishi over the next ten years.

In April 2012, a chartered accountant and financial analyst for the manufacturing firm SRF Limited was asked by her chief financial officer to analyze the company's cash dividend and share repurchase policy and provide recommendations for the next 12 to 24 months. SRF Limited was a ₹38 billion multi-business entity. Having completed its third round of share buyback at ₹380 per share, SRF Limited paid an interim and consistent dividend of ₹7 per share. The company had engaged in a series of share buybacks since 2006. In light of India's falling economic growth and pessimistic global economic outlook, the company needed to know if it would be able to maintain its growth. Should the company go ahead with another round of share buybacks and increasing dividends?

Finolex Industries Limited was India's largest rigid PVC pipes and fittings manufacturer and the second largest PVC resin manufacturer. It was a family-led enterprise with a long history of philanthropy. The Mukul Madhav Foundation was the charitable arm of the company, and it's functioning needed to be streamlined while considering the resources, timelines, and strategies required to meet its obligations. A strategic framework had to be applied so that Finolex Industries Limited and the Mukul Madhav Foundation could work together on a long-term basis on projects that benefitted the society as well as the organization.

Sunrise Power, a first-generation mid-sized power and mining company in India, was considering geographical diversification in the African continent. While many African nations were rich in resources, they often lagged in economic indicators, and global companies hesitated to invest in infrastructure due to limited risk appetite. However, this left an opportunity for mid-sized firms such as Sunrise Power, so long as they could attain regulatory support and ensure high returns. Sunrise Power needed to evaluate the complexities in identifying the right market in Southern Africa. This included examining indicators like population, gross domestic product, energy demand forecasts, and electrification capacity. The firm also had to identify the critical success factors and assess the risks in the strategy planning process. Finally, it needed to design an organizational structure for its African venture so as to realize the benefits of diversification.

In Serbia, citizens are reluctant to become politically active but young leaders Babović and Stojicic, the case protagonists, are determined to prod their peers into taking a stronger role in the country's government. Using community organizing principles, they launch Serbia on the Move, a nongovernmental organization created to organize and energize citizens to drive change in Serbia. On several occasions, Serbia on the Move's leaders find themselves at odds with the Serbian government as they campaign for the adoption of anti-corruption practices, maternity benefits and other programs and policies. The case describes the organization from its founding through its quest to scale nationally and its goals of building a strong organizational structure, volunteer base and impactful campaigns. Case number 2108.0

mySugr is a mobile health startup which allows us to explore several interlinked trends. One trend is the proliferation of health related applications, and an understanding of factors which seem to be related to success in the digital health space. Another trend is the role of patients in managing their own health, an issue of increasing importance as chronic diseases touch the lives of a growing number of individuals and consume an increasing part of the health budget. A third related concept is that of asset based approaches for health, a concept which seems to be linked to the success of a number of health apps.

Marc Cohodes, a renowned short-seller, has identified weaknesses in Signet's business strategy, which he argues is heavily reliant on providing loans to customers with subprime credit score. He believes that the company accounts for its receivables portfolio using recency accounting to hide the problem. The case presents Cohodes' thesis, the response by Signet's management team, as well as the reactions by sell-side analysts.

This case asks students to prepare a report comparing the financial and operating performance of AT&T and Verizon. Taking the perspective of a communications industry analyst, they must also consider the differences between and implications of the companies' business strategies and the differences between the technology and growth rates of the wireless and wireline business segments. As part of this exercise, students reorganize the balance sheets in terms of operating and financial components, calculate changes in working capital, derive un-levered free cash flow (FCF), and apply DuPont style ratios and margin analysis on a consolidated-as well as a segment-basis. Students must also consider the effects of actuarial gains and losses on operating results; and how analysts might adjust for those effects. The case was designed for first-year MBA students in financial statement analysis (FSA) and accounting classes, but it could also be used in other courses to prepare for discounted cash flow (DCF) exercises.

Uber Technologies Inc., the popular ride-hailing company, entered 2017 having doubled its bookings in 2016 and achieving a valuation of nearly $70 billion, making it the largest venture capital-backed company in the world. Co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick embodied the company, with a hard-charging attitude embedded in the company's workplace culture that allowed it to successfully take on the entrenched taxi industry. Uber looked to enjoy another year of global growth in 2017, until lawsuits and a cascading series of scandals surrounding that same workplace culture led a group of powerful investors to seek Kalanick's resignation to protect their investment. This case presents an overview of the growth of Uber, the impact of Kalanick, and the role that Uber's board of directors had in shaping the company's growth. It centers on the factors leading to Uber board members and investors to call for Kalanick's resignation, focusing on how board oversight can help shape company culture and how entrepreneurial boards deal with founder CEOs. It then deals with the events that happened in the aftermath of Kalanick's resignation, including the appointment of Dara Khosrowshahi as CEO and the changes, the lawsuit brought against Kalanick by venture capital firm Benchmark Capital, and the governance changes proposed at the end of September 2017.

In 2010, three friends created Fruits of Sherbrooke as a way to rescue local fruit that would otherwise be wasted. The founders knew their efforts would be beneficial for the environment and for people in need of food. In February 2016, having grown their business into a successful social enterprise entirely through the help of volunteers, they faced important decisions. Realistically, they would not always be able to run the organization, which meant facing issues of succession. Additionally, they needed to decide how to balance growth strategies with their commitment to the social good. Should the organization focus on maximizing profitability or should decisions for growth be based only on providing the greatest benefit possible to the community and environment?

In 2014, Jiangsu Huabo Industrial Group Co. Ltd. brought together offline logistics services and an online platform to create Jiangsu PhoneWin Logistics Management Co. Ltd. (PhoneWin). PhoneWin's purpose was to exploit e-commerce opportunities for phones and related services in small towns and villages in China. Although competition was fierce from several large e-commerce companies in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, PhoneWin achieved some success. By November 2015, it had expanded into 13 provinces across China and built partnerships with over 300 suppliers. However, two Chinese e-business giants had started to expand their penetration in rural markets, becoming an inevitable threat to PhoneWin. As an early entrant in this market, how could PhoneWin compete against such powerful giants? Could it sustain its revenue and profit growth in the coming years?

In 2016, the founder of Enigma Escape Rooms Ltd. (Enigma) was investigating an opportunity to expand his business to a second location. A new location would offer three additional escape rooms, and Enigma would enter the horror-based genre of the market. Enigma had strong demand for its adventure-themed escape rooms during its first year of operations. With escape room popularity at an all-time high and new competitors in or entering the market, the owner wondered if this was the best time to grow his business. He planned to complete a business size-up, assess the competition, and then project the costs and benefits of opening a second location before making a final decision.

Entering 2017, Tencent and Facebook are reinventing their business models in areas including social media, e-commerce, fintech, gaming, mobile, IoT and VR, among others. The case illustrates the advantage of platform business models over pipeline models or a traditional product focus. It unveils the power of Chinese accelerated innovation and demystifies so- called Chinese "copycat" culture. It also shows how the two tech giants Facebook and Tencent have applied different business models and acquisition strategies, which to a large extent have been conditioned by social, geopolitical and regulatory issues. In showing that Tencent excels in multiple areas when benchmarked against Facebook, another case objective is to encourage students to challenge widely held beliefs that Chinese companies cannot innovate or are incapable of being global players. The case also reveals challenging aspects of doing Internet business in China, including the country's business culture, as well as the Great Fire Wall and how it boosted the Chinese economy, making it difficult for Western technology firms to enter.

In January of 2017, CJ Entertainment & Media (E&M) proudly announced that it will be holding its first ever KCON in Mexico City just two months later. CJ Group Chairman Jay Lee and Vice Chairwoman Miky Lee are pleased at the progress that KCON, a Korean-oriented music and cultural convention, has made since its debut in LA in 2012. In the years since 2012, the event has been held every year in LA, and has recently also taken place in New York, Tokyo, Paris, and Abu Dhabi, with varying levels of financial success. In addition to growing in number, KCON has grown in size. By 2016, KCON LA had become a three-day, two-concert affair, that attracted 70,000 attendees with a wide range of experiences for fans to enjoy, including Korean foods, dance classes, beauty products, and eSports offerings. Chairman Lee and VC Lee believe that KCON is a good vehicle for accelerating the Hallyu wave of Korean culture that was still sweeping the globe, and riding this wave in promoting CJ Group offerings. Indeed, the Group's food brand Bibigo, which ran nine restaurants in the LA area and sold frozen dumplings and other Korean foods in Costco across the U.S., and KCON.tv, a digital media channel, were experiencing commercial success in the U.S. market. But at the same time, there was some uncertainty about the best way to ensure continued growth of the KCON concept. Should they expand the current KCONs to include more days, shows, and events; launch KCONs in new geographies such as Southeast Asia or Australia; or some combination of these growth strategies? How concerned should they be with KCON's uneven financial performance and difficulty in generating sponsorship revenue? KCON LA and KCON Tokyo have made a profit for multiple years in a row, and KCON NY was in the black for the first time in 2016, but other KCONs lost money. What can they do to further grow the Bibigo brand in the US?

In late 2015, CEO Vince Forlenza was reviewing Becton Dickinson's transformation efforts designed to enable the company to innovate and grow in a changing environment. Becton Dickinson had been a successful medical device company for over 100 years. In recent years, cost pressures were causing its major customers to consolidate, and also to rethink their purchasing practices-moving from looking for products to looking for cost-effective solutions that added value and improved patient outcomes. These market forces caused Becton Dickinson to try to adapt to remain successful. In 2009, the company used the Growth and Innovation Profiling process to determine what barriers were preventing the company from achieving its strategic objectives. The result showed that the company needed to make changes in the areas of capabilities, coordination, and culture. Forlenza then led a transformation effort consisting of numerous initiative to overcome these barriers. Despite significant progress over the next few years, by 2013 Forlenza and his team became convinced that these changes alone would not be enough to enable Becton Dickinson to transform into a solutions company and achieve sufficient growth to remain relevant. In early 2015, Becton Dickinson acquired CareFusion, an acquisition 25-times larger than any of its previous acquisitions, and set out to create a new, integrated company made up of the best of both. By late that year, with the integration well underway, Forlenza was asking himself how successful the transformation had been and what he should do next to continue the journey.

Ferrero Group (Ferrero) operated in the chocolate confectionery industry. The industry was facing challenges with changes in consumer needs, and price volatility and scarcity of raw ingredients. To achieve its ambitious economic goals in this environment, Ferrero integrated various sustainability initiatives in its supply chain and grew the company through vertical and horizontal integration. Advocating a vision of "sharing values to create value," the company set sustainability goals for 2020, which included controlling and being able to trace the supply of raw ingredients. Could Ferrero maintain its leading position in the industry and achieve its sustainability goals? To what extent could the sustainability goals strengthen the company's competitive position and move it toward achieving its financial goals?